Newark mayor takes to Twitter to help amid Sandy

When he wasn't talking to national media, Cory Booker was on the streets and on Twitter.
Screenshot by Eric Mack/CNET

Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, N.J., took to the streets and the tweets over the last couple of days to help the city make it through Superstorm Sandy.

Booker spent much of yesterday and last night driving around in an SUV loaded with diapers, water, and other supplies for citizens in distress, personally enforcing curfew on some roaming teenagers, and coordinating crews to move the homeless to shelter. Along the way, Booker was communicating with citizens via tweets and direct messages:

Screenshot by Eric Mack/CNET

When one man tweeted at Booker that a tree had fallen on his aunt's house, the mayor apparently sped to the scene:

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This morning, after what looks to have been about four hours of sleep, Booker was back on Twitter responding to citizen questions about pumping water out of flooded basements.

Surely, some of you are cynical. After all, what are the odds that it's actually the mayor of a major city who's managing this Twitter feed? When one snarky citizen called out Booker on some spelling mistakes, Booker responded that it was indeed him manning the tweets: